Friday, June 28, 2013

In Venice, Italy, Gondolas have ubiquitous presences and are the most recognizable symbols of this lovely emerald city surrounded by lagoon and laced with the canals grand and small. Those shining black leaf-shaped row boats, set off the green water and the pale marbled palazzi along the canals brilliantly.

Last October, when I visited Venice, naturally, I snapped many pictures of those flat-bottom, sharp-tipped boats traveling in the canal, lagoon, or mooring in the cove.

One morning, one my way to the opera house, La Fenice, from Piazza San Marco, I stumbled upon a cove Agenzia Gondolieri Travel Bacino Orseolo, where gondolas parked overnight and it was quite a sight:

I particularly loved seeing those gondolas in the tranquil small waterways, strangely familiar and comforting.

The locals and brave tourists would cross the Grand Canal via a commuter gondola, Traghetto, standing:

Lastly, in front of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, I spotted in the Grand Canal a gondolier nonchalantly speaking on his cellular phone. For us, gondolas were a thrilling novelty; for the locals, it was simply a way of life: